The Tasmanian Greens have urged the Minister for Heritage Brian Wightman MP to seek advice from the Tasmanian Law Reform Institute to address legal and planning conflicts arising from the proposed Parliament Square project.

Greens Planning spokesperson Tim Morris MP said the project had highlighted problems with the interaction of the planning approval system and the Heritage approval system, particularly in regard to the application and meaning of Section 41 of the Historic Cultural Heritage Act 1995.

“Delays to the planning process for Parliament Square stem from uncertainties relating to the interaction of the state’s heritage laws and its planning laws,” Mr Morris said.

“This has led to the project getting shunted back and forth between the Tribunal and the Supreme Court, without any clear resolution on the future of the development.”

“There are clearly uncertainties over the meaning and application of the Historic Cultural Heritage Act which won’t be addressed through project-specific legislation.”

“While the Greens do not believe the solution is to water down the Historic Cultural Heritage Act, it’s clear that these issues will need to be resolved to prevent other major projects becoming similarly bogged down.”

“We are urging the Minister to seek recommendations from the Tasmanian Law Reform Institute on how to best achieve appropriate reform of the Act to ensure its integrity is retained, while finding a workable solution to its application alongside planning laws.”

“We cannot risk any changes to the Historic Cultural Heritage Act being driven by potential political imperatives rather than good heritage law.”

“That is why the Greens are proposing the TLRI conducts the inquiry as a n independent body,” Mr Morris said.

Agreed. Planning legislation should be revised to stop this “project of State significance” nonsense whereby any project favoured by the Minister can be fasttracked without proper public input and without proper assessment. Interesting that on such projects, where corruption is more likely by virtue of fast-tracking, the Liberals and labor are as at one. They just never bloody well learn, do they, even after such a painful lesson as one would have thought the pulp mill had delivered.

Posted by John Biggs on 26/11/12 at 12:42 PM

Why is the image of the proposed Parliament Square project used extensively in the media? It is in fact the first proposal that was rejected in the first tribunal hearing… Ironically because it had an adverse impact on the heritage values of Parliament House itself and Sullivans Cove in general. Setback, height and massing changes were imposed to preserve views of Parliament House without the imposition of the new offices overbearing the symbol of Democracy…

Tim Morris’ concerns are important given the political climate surrounding the Parliament Square Bill however it needs to be appreciated that the Supreme Court provided clarity over the interpretation of ‘prudent and feasible alternatives’ of S41 in its first decision upholding the provisions of the Act. In its second decision, delivered just 3 days following the passage of the ‘bypass’ bill, the Tribunal was asked to redetermine the application of S41 because their reasoning was inadequate.
The ‘prudent and feasible alternative’ statutory test is found in many state and federal heritage legislation in Australia and overseas and if the court process had been given just a few weeks it would have found to be workable in the protection of heritage.

Posted by Paul Johnston on 27/11/12 at 04:23 PM

The prudent and feasible alternative statutory test has been a thorn in the side of Heritage Tasmania and the Tasmanian Heritage Council for some time when trying to facilitate their ‘major projects’.

This fasttracking is their only recourse and they think a clever way to circumvent the current Act. This method is open to abuse and has now set a precedent. Dangerous ground.

A new Heritage Act is currently before Parliament. Is Section 41 still there?

Good luck with the TLRI, Tim, but there is no such thing as an independent body in this State.

Posted by Tom Bailey on 28/11/12 at 08:26 AM

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